Boston

Aug 28th

Bridget and I slept in late this morning. The temperature is quite pleasant today, so we decided to go for a hike. The Park has miles of trails. We hiked a shorter trail, 3 miles round trip, that went to Aaron River Reservoir. Oreo enjoyed it too, because dogs are allowed off leash as long as they are under voice command.

Aug 29th

We are going to explore Boston via “T” (subway) today. After some initial confusion, we found that the train system is quite user friendly. For $22 we have a 7 day pass we can use as much as we like. We took the Red Line to the Green Line and exited at Northeastern University. From the time we left our campsite to our exit, it was about an hour. Driving would have taken longer. Oreo did not care for the train ride at all. In fact, he threw up on the Boston sidewalk after the ride. From the Northeastern campus, we walked to the Westin Hotel, where Bridget will be living for her first semester. It was less than a mile. The city closes the shopping district to car traffic on the weekends, and the street is full of people walking and shopping. Boston does not allow dogs in restaurants for indoor or outdoor seating, so we had to find some take out food. Being Sunday and move-in week for the six colleges nearby, every restaurant was packed. We found a Shake Shack where the lines weren’t quite as long and ordered food. The burgers were pretty good. Kathy tried to get deodorant at a CVS, and set off their alarm because the deodorant is kept in a locked cabinet. She left the store flustered. A block away we found another CVS, and I went in with Kathy. While we were inside, I get a call from Bridget and she tells me that someone threatened to kill her. I run back outside, but the man is gone. Bridget says that he went into the CVS. I go back into the CVS, to find the man freaking out at the self-check-out-kiosk, and security trying to get him to leave. I went back outside with Bridget and Mia so he cannot interact with them when he comes out. He came out and ran/lunged/stumbled out into traffic and disappeared. Kathy tells me he threatened a to kill another woman inside and then stole a bag full of groceries. Ah, life in the big city. We walked to the Boston Commons and were just in time to see a procession of Anti-Vax cars go by. They were honking and using megaphones to tell us we were all sheep, then they start spewing racist and homophobic slurs. Can you guess what flags they were flying? Correct, “He Who Shall Not Be Named”. The reactions were quite unanimous. People either laughed at them or flipped the “bird”. We took the train back home and had a relaxing evening.

Aug 30th

Today we are meeting Bridget’s friend Allie and her parents, Jackie and Chris, in Boston for Lunch. Since Oreo didn’t enjoy the trail ride yesterday, we left him in the trailer. Allie is going to The New England Conservatory of Music, which is next door to Northeastern University. While we were waiting for Allie to get out of class, Bridget took us through part of her campus. It is huge. After meeting up, we all walked a few blocks and found an Indian restaurant to get take out at. We ate lunch in the park across the street and talked for a while. Jackie and Chris have just moved to Texas from Sebastopol, because of Chris’ job. They have invited us to come stay with them on our way through this fall. We didn’t want to leave Oreo for too long, so we said our goodbyes and headed back. It is extremely humid today, so it was good to get back to our trailer with the AC running.